Abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance and relationship of miR-497 and metadherin to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumor characteristics and patients’ survival. Methods: This study enrolled 120 (60 HCC patients and 60 healthy) subjects. Serum miR-497 and metadherin mRNA relative expression were analyzed by real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. The overall survival (OS) of HCC patients was assessed using the Kaplan–Meier curve and log-rank test. Results: Serum miR-497 showed statistically significant downregulation in HCC patients compared to controls (p < 0.001). Serum metadherin mRNA relative expression was significantly upregulated in HCC patients compared to controls (p < 0.001). Both serum miR-497 and metadherin mRNA expression were significantly associated with the number of tumor foci (p = 0.028 and 0.001, respectively), tumor size (p = 0.022 and <0.001, respectively), nodal metastasis (p = 0.003 and 0.003, respectively), distant metastasis (p = 0.003 and 0.003, respectively), vascular invasion (p = 0.040 and <0.001, respectively), and BCLC staging (p = 0.043 and 0.004, respectively). The overall survival was lower in patients with low miR-497 expression (p = 0.046) and in patients with high metadherin expression (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The expression levels of miR-497 showed downregulation in HCC patients, but metadherin expression showed upregulation. Both markers were inversely related and closely correlated with tumor characteristics and patients’ survival.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of primary liver malignancy
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 subjects, 60 of them were diagnosed as with HCC and 60 of them served as a control group
The HCC patients involved in this study were 36 males and 24 females with a mean age of 50.1 ± 7.7 (35–63) years; 25% of them had a positive family history of HCC and 46.7% were positive smokers
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of primary liver malignancy. It is the fifth most common cancer in males, and the seventh in females worldwide. The incidence and total mortality rates of HCC represent about 84% and 83% of those worldwide, respectively [2]. In Egypt, the incidence of HCC has risen from 4% to 7.2% within the last ten years which may be due to an increase in the risk factors such as chronic Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and hepatitis B infections [3]. Regardless of the advancement of HCC diagnostic and therapeutic tools, the patients’ prognosis is still poor due to increased metastasis and recurrence rates. There is an essential need to discover new diagnostic and prognostic markers for better prediction of disease outcomes and improvement of patients’ survival [4]
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